Malicious site operators in China fall into two broad categories, Thompson said: fraudsters looking to steal your banking password, and teenagers who want to steal your World of Warcraft character.

The solution mentioned in the article is to keep automatic updates switched on. Automatic updates can kiss my ass. The last time I ran automatic updates, it made Internet Explorer my default browser and loaded the vile Outlook Express on my nice clean machine. I turned it off, and now it pisses and moans every time I reboot. So I don’t reboot. How bout we just don’t give out our banking or WoW details instead?

I know, I know. It’s the weekend. I’m s’posed to be restesing. But I’m all about looking out for the minions.

Comments

Yeah – before I embarked on my continuing (and severely fatiguing) effort to feed A&A with porn, I had a long consultation with a friend who is an IT expert. The main trick is to absolutely fire-wall with a reliable product and NEVER, EVER, EVER give any site permission to do ANYTHING. No software downloads, no “new drivers”, no “upgrade your direct x” (even if it looks like the Microsoft logo and appears genuine), NO NOTHIN’.

I have yet to be infected – although several sites try.

The downfall of most surfers is CURIOSITY.

Comment from porknbeanTime: February 23, 2008, 1:56 pm

Hey, can you cook potroast from frozen?

I would try to defrost a bit in the microwave first. But, you can. Just add more time to the roasting part.

I think I read a different variation of that cat diary years ago. It rings a sympathetic chord today. The cats have been unwilling to go out for long on account of snow, so there’s way too much feline energy to be burned off. They stalk each other through the mostly empty house. It’s like Apocalypse fucking Now in here. With extra screaming. The horror!

Cats that get along with each other; what a blessing that would be.

Comment from Gibby HaynesTime: February 24, 2008, 7:52 am

Apocalypse Now huh? Does that mean there are a group of savages slaughtering a water buffalo for no particular reason and a fat, bald man talking gibberish in the shadows?
Is a potroast basically like a casserole/stew but with a whole joint of meat? And why is it called a potroast. Surely potboil or potsimmer would be more appropriate?
My computer security worries are history. I use Vista which is the operating system equivalent of a paranoiac hypochondriac. It keeps itself safe by either not allowing you to do what you want or by asking, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ so you click ‘OK’ and it says ‘No, but are you really sure you want to do that?’ and so on until you wish it’d catch a virus or some malware or something so that it’d just shut the fuck up.

Comment from Uncle BadgerTime: February 24, 2008, 8:11 am

As a fully paid-up, card carrying opponent of the staring-eyed legions of Mac True Believers (sorry, but you know what I mean), Vista could well be the thing that pushes me over the edge and into their clutches.

I truly never believed it could come to this, but Vista is a scam too far.

BTW, Gibby – how’s the gardening? I’m off out in a sec to finish planting the hawthorn/blackthorn hedge, then I’m probably going to get my rhubarb in. Now, there’s no need to start crying!

(Note for readers in the far-flung colonies: rhubarb has great sentimental, mystical and religious significance in Yorkshire (second only to God’s favourite pastime – cricket). There is even an area known as ‘the rhubarb triangle’, where much of the early (‘forced’) kind is grown. They actually pick the stuff by candlelight, so as to keep the stems pale and tender).

They are, of course, quite right. A good rhubarb crumble is as close to heaven as most of us will get. Badgers, especially.

Funny old place, England.

Comment from Gibby HaynesTime: February 24, 2008, 8:26 am

I put my rhubarb in a pot last year and it didn’t do too well, so I’ve put it back in the ground. It put a shoot up the other day so the dog bit it off. I’ve had it a few years and I’ve not managed to harvest any so far. Maybe I’ll force it like those nuts in the sheds with that candles do.
I’m just waiting for the last frost to come and go do I can put the potatoes in.

Golly, Gibby – rhubarb that won’t grow?! The stuff’s usually like a weed unless it gets crown rot (which, I confess, happened to two lots of mine at the old sett). Did you buy it or were you given some?

I’ve just bought a couple of pots of two year old crowns – um… ‘Champagne’ and ‘Timperley Early’, but I’ve been dithering about where to put them.

All I do is dig a bloody great hole, mix half and half manure and soil, put it in and leave it alone till the following year, when it gets another top dressing of, er, shit.

Shall we tell them that fine old English rhubarb joke now? The one that goes: ‘Do you put manure on your rhubarb?’ ‘No, I don’t old boy, I prefer custard on mine’.

All together now, ha ha ha!

Comment from Gibby HaynesTime: February 24, 2008, 9:03 am

Hilarious.
Yeah, crown rot sounds like what’s happening. It sends up shoots and they get to a few inches high and then they die off. But that didn’t happen in the pot, it just didn’t ever seem to get around to growing.
Maybe it’s too deep or something. Or maybe too wet. It’s plenty nutrient rich because I dug loads of leaf mould and compost in there.
Not sure what variety it is, but it’s from the garden centre.
I’ll give it another year and if it doesn’t do anything, then I’ll dig it up and hoy it next door.

Comment from quark2Time: February 24, 2008, 10:11 am

Rhubarb with custard. That brings about ancient
memories. I’ve not had any since my grandmum passed.mweh

Yep, paypal was really cool about it. NOT!
I have no idea how they got into my account. I’m on the phone with paypal telling them to freeze my account and they tell me a charge is going thru as I’m talking to them. I said well stop it from going thru. They tell me they can’t and there’s nothing I can do about it because I gave these people my password. WTF?!?!?
I didn’t give anyone my password.

Tom Poindexter from Canada was apparently putting thru lots of charges in the amount of $300- $500. I hadn’t used this account in like 6 months. Did paypal find this amount of activity odd? Did they notify me? Nope, what happened was I got an automatic reply to my email address thanking me for my purchase.

The thieves must have realized this somehow as they went into paypal and disabled sending other messages to my email addy.
So I went to my credit cards and my bank and talked to them. They would not do anything for me either till I filed a police report.

I had to have the sheriff’s dept come to my house. (oh you should have seen how fast I cleaned my house out of child protective services paranoia, I should have them come out once a week)
Then I had to file a report with the FBI’s internet crime division. So I sent copies of this to my credit card companies and a couple months later (yes months) my money got returned to me. Best part is we’d just moved to Florida at that time and were trying to buy a house.

What kills me is I was on the phone with Paypal trying to unfreeze my account later and I was talking about how great the credit card co’s were at helping me get my money back and the guy says to me, it was paypal that got you your money back.

They told me they don’t even bother trying to track down the bad guys.
It’s easier I suppose to just tell us not to open phishing emails.
I can’t for the life of me remember opening any phishing emails. Being the brilliant gal I was at the time I had the same username and password for freaking everything. Had they been a little more creative they could have really screwed me over.

*claps hands and rocks back and forth*

I’m a lucky girl!

got a “thank you for your purchase” email the other day. I ’bout freaked until I realized it was sent to an address that doesn’t have a PayPal account. Phishing, had to be.

For the longest time I would get the biggest pit in my stomach whenever I got one of those emails. I was actually scared to use my computer. I felt like someone was watching me.

Comment from S. WeaselTime: February 24, 2008, 3:18 pm

I totally don’t get this. If you stole a car, drove it to Canada and got pulled over for reckless driving, you’d *so* go to jail (for the reckless driving and the theft).

I don’t understand why good old-fashioned laws dealing with fraud and theft don’t cover online fraud and theft just fine.

Well when my car got stolen they weren’t interested in tracking those guys down either.

Except they caught “someone” in the car, but they couldn’t bust him for stealing the car because they didn’t have evidence that he actually stole it. So he had to get in trouble for receiving stolen goods. Best part is he was an illegal alien, nice huh?

Comment from porknbeanTime: February 24, 2008, 4:08 pm

Except they caught “someone” in the car, but they couldn’t bust him for stealing the car because they didn’t have evidence that he actually stole it.

Now that is a crock of horseshit. I don’t care if you stole the car or not, if you are in someone’s car that is not yours, who did not give you permission to be in that car, and it is stolen, YOU SHOULD BE charged with theft, if you stole it or not. And if you didn’t steal it, then you get an extra charge for stupidity. WTF?

Comment from S. WeaselTime: February 24, 2008, 4:10 pm

Lady, you got some serious karma issues. Time to sacrifice a chicken or adopt an orphan or pour likker out on the ground or something.

Comment from porknbeanTime: February 24, 2008, 4:13 pm

Mmmmm rhubarb pie! It’s been ages since the last time I made it.

Weasel, you are a lucky mustelid. You gots yourself a gardener of foodies, who can garden in something other than the red clay crap I have to deal with, with an accent to boot.

Comment from pajama mommaTime: February 24, 2008, 4:22 pm

Now that is a crock of horseshit.
I couldn’t agree more.

Lady, you got some serious karma issues.

Not that I believe in thaat sort of thing, but if I did, I figure I must have been really wicked in a past life.

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